About Textshine

What Textshine corrects – and what it doesn’t

The correction suggestions you receive from Textshine are created by a complex system that combines multiple (AI) models, rule sets and heuristics to provide you with the best possible correction quality.

✅ What Textshine corrects

Our design principle is: Textshine should only correct what is actually wrong.

This primarily includes spelling, grammar and punctuation.

• Textshine checks your spelingspelling,
• theyour grammar,
• and – last but not least – punctuation.

When multiple spellings are permissible, we try to follow Duden recommendations as much as possible.

Unlike the competition, Textshine is able to consider the semantic context when making corrections. Here’s an example:

• Birch wood is often used in furniture making in various shades as it can be easily dyed. TheyIt is heavy and medium-hard, and they areit is particularly tough and elastic.

Furthermore, Textshine tries to harmonize certain spellings (quotation marks, gender-neutral spelling, etc.):

• Some texts use various "quotation marks", including 'single'"double" or even «French»"German". Textshine harmonizes these – depending on which are primarily used in the text.
• When using gender-inclusive language, there is often inconsistency. In one place, you might read about teachers, and shortly after suddenly about student(s) students.

🚫 What Textshine explicitly does not correct

If you’re looking for general writing assistance, then you shouldn’t use Textshine. Because what Textshine explicitly does not do is make stylistic interventions, wording suggestions and similar interferences.

We believe that our customers master writing much better than an AI, if only because the appropriate wording doesn’t follow clear rules but is highly personal and individual.

We also believe that our customers – unlike simple proofreading – want to continue doing this type of work themselves.

This is what a successful symbiosis of human and machine looks like to us.

🧩 Where and how to use Textshine

Textshine proofreads where your texts are created and returns every correction as a tracked change that you can accept or reject individually. Your formatting is preserved.

• Word: Upload your document and get it back with tracked changes – with Textshine Business also documents with macros. Footnotes, endnotes, tables, links and index entries are preserved.
• InDesign and InCopy: Textshine proofreads IDML and ICML files and writes the corrections into native track changes. With our plugins you can do this right from InDesign and InCopy.
• Browser extension: Proofread directly in web-based applications – your CMS, editorial system or publishing software.
• Hot folder: Files are exchanged automatically via SFTP or OneDrive, with no manual uploading and downloading.
• Single sign-on: Your team signs in with Microsoft Entra or Google.

Apart from the basic Word upload, these workflows are part of Textshine Business. Just email us at hi@textshine.com.

📄 Can Textshine proofread PDFs?

Textshine currently cannot proofread PDF files directly. Whenever possible, use the editable source file: if the PDF was created in InDesign or InCopy, export the document as IDML and have that file proofread. You then review the corrections directly in InDesign or InCopy.

📚 Proofread the manuscript before typesetting or the InDesign document?

We recommend proofreading the Word manuscript with Textshine before typesetting. That way as few errors as possible make it into the layout, and late corrections cause less work in typesetting.

Many publishers additionally check the typeset pages. For this, Textshine proofreads the InDesign document and you accept or reject the changes in InDesign or InCopy.

📐 Can Textshine follow our house rules?

Yes. In custom proofreading guidelines you define how Textshine should proofread for your house, for example:

• quotation marks (German, French or Swiss style)
• gender-inclusive language
• numbers, dates and currency amounts
• spacing and typographic details
• protected terms that should never be changed
• your own replacements (e.g. always “TikTok” instead of “Tiktok”) and context-sensitive replacements that distinguish, say, a mirror (“der Spiegel”) from the magazine (“im SPIEGEL gelesen”)

You manage your guidelines yourself and can create several – for example per imprint, series, publication or language region. When uploading, in the plugins and in the browser extension you then pick the right guideline.

Rule-based settings such as quotation marks are applied reliably. AI-based settings, such as currency formats, steer the proofreading clearly in the desired direction but are not a hundred percent guarantee.

Custom guidelines are part of Textshine Business – just get in touch.

🌍 Which languages does Textshine proofread?

Textshine specialises in German-language texts and follows the conventions used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. English texts are supported in a beta version. Here a matching guideline is particularly worthwhile, because many conventions – such as the Oxford comma, quotation marks or ellipses – vary widely.

Shorter passages in other languages are usually recognised and corrected as well. For complete documents in other languages, however, we cannot yet guarantee the same proofreading quality.

🎯 How accurate is Textshine?

Textshine is not only the safest but also the most accurate proofreading tool on the market. For rough classification: our customers tell us again and again that in their tests Textshine performs at the level of an average human proofreader.

This assessment is based on countless feedback from customers who have compared Textshine with other market participants and with professional proofreaders.

That Textshine is the most accurate automatic proofreading solution can easily be verified. At the same time, exact quantification is extremely difficult, as the quality of the correction always depends on the complexity of the source text used for measurement:

• Some texts are more difficult than others: A text in simple language with simple typos is easier to correct than a complicated text in scientific jargon with very subtle errors.
• Not every found/overlooked error weighs equally: If a wrong article is overlooked, this error usually weighs more heavily than a comma error that many readers might not even notice.

Thus, primarily the subjective assessment remains whether Textshine meets your requirements. But because we are so convinced of the quality of our product, we have prominently placed an input field on www.textshine.com where you can test Textshine for free and without registration, because that’s our best advertising. So our request: See for yourself!

👩‍⚕️ What happens with proper names, jargon and colloquial language?

Unlike other programs, Textshine is able to correct proper names, jargon and colloquial language like “normal” text. You don’t have to laboriously add these words to a dictionary.

But even a proper name can be misspelled, so if we’re talking about the actress KateCate Blanchett, then Textshine would intervene. However, if a name or term is rather unknown, it won’t be corrected in case of doubt.

💩 Where does Textshine reach its limits?

Textshine is of course not perfect. We know this, and we don’t want to hide it. Here are the biggest limitations we know of:

• To err is not only human:
  • Sometimes Textshine overlooks something. Just as there has never been perfect proofreading, there is no hundred percent error-free result with Textshine either.
  • Not every correction suggestion is correct. Therefore, look at the correction suggestions carefully and reject the incorrect ones.
• Consistency of spellings across longer passages: It can happen that Textshine always hyphenates Baltoro-Glacier in one passage, but writes it as Baltoroglacier in another passage.
• Different results when proofreading again: Textshine works with AI language models that do not always return exactly the same result for the same input. Much like another human proofreading pass, a second run may find additional errors or judge individual cases – such as compound spellings – differently.
• Formatting boundaries inside a word: if a correction would have to cross such a boundary (for example in partially bold or partially linked words), it is not applied in case of doubt, so that your document is not damaged.

🔒 What about data security?

The security and integrity of your data is our top priority, for which we were also rewarded with extensive funding as part of the AI Mission Austria of the federal government after strict jury decision.

To protect your data, we have taken the following measures:

• All texts are transmitted encrypted (encryption in transit)
• Your documents are stored encrypted (encryption at rest)
• Only authorized employees based in Austria have access to code and servers.
• We do not train our AI models on your data.
• Your documents are automatically and irrevocably deleted within 24 hours of order placement.

If you would like to learn more about these topics, please read our Privacy Policy and our Terms and Conditions.

🏷️ Do corrected texts need to be labeled as AI-generated?

First: It is essential that you observe the legal and institutional regulations in your specific area of application. We cannot provide binding information here.

But: In our assessment, documents provided with correction suggestions by Textshine should not be subject to labeling requirements, because:

• Textshine does not generate independent texts, but merely provides correction suggestions for existing texts.
• The correction suggestions mainly concern spelling, grammar and punctuation. They do not change the content core or authorship of the original text.
• The final decision on accepting or rejecting the correction suggestions still lies with you as the user.

💯 Does Textshine constantly learn?

Yes and no.

Textshine doesn’t learn “just like that” from the texts you submit for correction. We don’t train our models on your data to protect your copyright, privacy and the confidentiality of your documents.

Nevertheless, we are constantly developing Textshine further:

• Through your feedback: With the help of your feedback, especially error cases, we can continuously improve Textshine’s performance.

• Thanks to our cooperation partners: We work with partners who provide us with texts for which they themselves hold the copyright. These partners have given us permission to use their texts for training.

• Based on our own use of and vision for Textshine: We ourselves come from the publishing industry and have been using Textshine in our daily work for many years. This gives us a clear idea of how Textshine can be expanded in the future and we are continuously working on improving the underlying algorithms and models.

In this way, we can steadily develop Textshine without violating our users’ rights.

🤖 Does Textshine replace…?

Does Textshine replace journalistic proofreading?

In everyday editorial work, Textshine is intended as a supportive proofreading instance. It thus complements your existing expertise to create space for human creativity and editorial care.

For editors, this means that they no longer have to proofread for spelling errors and thus get more time for research and writing again.

For proofreaders, this means that they can focus on more demanding aspects of their work: the content review and stylistic revision that are essential for high-quality publications.

Does Textshine replace conventional proofreading?

Depending on the text and requirements, Textshine can significantly relieve or even completely automate the work of human proofreading.

Textshine relieves proofreaders of 99% of time-consuming routine tasks, allowing them to focus on more demanding aspects of text correction. In many cases, especially with less complex texts or limited budgets, Textshine can significantly reduce or even completely eliminate the need for additional human correction.

The combination of Textshine and human proofreading in the sense of a four-eyes principle enables efficient, cost-effective and particularly thorough quality assurance, especially for demanding texts in the professional publication sector.

Does Textshine replace editing?

No, Textshine does not replace editing. Textshine is a powerful tool for automated, surface-level correction of texts, while editing represents comprehensive, in-depth revision by an experienced professional.

Good editing does much more:

• Content correction
• Stylistic revision
• Structural optimizations
• Checking logic and coherence
• Adapting tonality to target audience and text type
• Fact-checking and source verification
• Advice and support for authors while writing
• and much more

Textshine is intended as support for authors and editors. It removes the “simple” errors and thus creates more space and time for the more demanding aspects of text work. Thanks to Textshine, an editor can focus more on improving the content and style of the text instead of spending time correcting typos or punctuation.

The combination of automated pre-correction by Textshine and subsequent human editing combines machine efficiency with the indispensable human expertise and creativity that are essential for high-quality texts.

👀 How does Textshine differ from ChatGPT?

Our customers generally appreciate the following advantages of Textshine over ChatGPT:

1. Textshine is optimized for German, follows Duden recommendations and also proofreads English as a beta.
2. Textshine was specifically developed for proofreading and doesn’t rewrite your texts.
3. Textshine records all changes (which can then be rejected if in doubt).
4. Textshine retains your formatting.
5. Textshine processes texts of unlimited length.
6. Textshine proofreads Word, InDesign and InCopy files directly.
7. Textshine integrates into your editorial and publishing systems via browser extension, plugin or hot folder.
8. Textshine follows your own house rules on request.
9. Textshine doesn’t train on your data.
10. Textshine doesn’t store your texts.
11. You receive your own deployments within the EU upon request.

⚖️ How does Textshine differ from other proofreading tools?

Most proofreading tools – such as the spell checker in Word or Google Docs – are designed as everyday writing aids: they flag possible errors, often suggest several options and leave the decision to you. For emails and everyday texts, that is exactly right.

Textshine is built for professionals who cannot compromise on proofreading quality: it proposes the right correction without asking, leaves your wording untouched and delivers every change traceably in your document – in Word, in InDesign or directly in your CMS. That means less rework and checking, and more time for the actual work.

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👉 Do you have any further questions? Simply send an email to me or my colleague Anna Bozecski, we are always happy to help.